Video Sunday: Beaucoup d’Imagination

She’ll have a book contract within a week. This was undoubtedly the most popular video of the past week, making the rounds amongst folks who (A) like cute French kids (B) like Winnie-the-Pooh and (C) are aware that Pooh books are strikingly lacking in “singes”. Many thanks to BoingBoing for the link.

But really, this week 100 Scope Notes had all the good videos. In fact, if you read your 100 Scope Notes regularly (as I know you should) then you’ve probably seen all of these already. Like this young woman reading Fox in Socks faster than any human has ever been able to before.

What really stands out to me while watching that video is how remarkable Seuss’s writing is, was, evermore shall be. He did something so original that it can never be effectively replicated. Now I need to run off and read some Fox in Socks.

Oh, how adorable. I’ve only attended the ALA Media Awards since they got huge. But Travis managed to find an old C-Span video of the award announcement from way back in 2001. A full ten years ago. How time has changed things. And did I hear Lisa Von Drasek screaming “Yes!” when Casey at the Bat was mentioned as a Caldecott winner? I think I did. In any case, these are always fun to watch, if only to hear the reactions from the audience.

In this next one, I saw on Swiss Miss that a photographer had taken a lot of neat photographs around New York, many in Bryant Park behind my library. I then discovered this video of how he made the photos. The first one shown here is in the Bryant Park fountain. Apparently they took some in my library as well (undoubtedly when the guards were looking the other way). Here’s a video on how they were made.

Booktrailer time. Carolrhoda Books (in conjunction with Lerner) put out this great little quick look at how Stephen Gammell paints his newest creation Mudkin. Gammell. There is no one on this good green earth that kind paint like he can. No one.

Thanks to Lindsay Matvick for the link!

Huh. Proto Peanuts. Only without any kids that can act. I can see why this pilot for a television version of Suzuki Beane didn’t fly, but I appreciate what they were trying to do.

Now last Video Sunday I presented a remarkable and awesome book trailer for A Tale Dark and Grimm. A discussion was raised considering how professional it was and how much it must have cost, the implication being that no average author or illustrator could have such a thing done for their book. I got two responses after this, one from author Adam Gidwitz himself and one from the trailer’s creator. I think they both shed quite a bit of light on this process. For example, said Adam:

“As for who made it, and for how much, it was made by one of my best friends from High School. He gave Penguin a deal, but yes, they had to pay him more than most people usually spend on a book trailer. That said, he’s got an amazing track record of videos. You should check them out here, just because you’d enjoy his stuff: http://mixtapeclub.com/ Jesse used to sit next to me in physics, and, before he got excused from class permanently for being to smart (I kid you not, that’s exactly what happened), I used to turn to the board and turn back to my notes that he had drawn a line on the P at the top of my physics notes so they became Rhysics notes. Very upsetting. Also, the awesome voice over guy was someone I met at a dinner, and I just had a hunch he did VO work.”

“To those who called it out as “professional,” you’re right; I make a living as an animator. But it certainly wasn’t expensive. Adam (the author) and I have been friends since we were both 12, so I treated this as more of a fun project for us to work on together than a job to pay the rent. Penguin offered what I understand is their standard nominal book trailer fee, and the entire budget went to paying friends below-market rates to do animation, music, and sound while I worked for free for 3 or 4 weeks. It was a lot of fun to make and I’m very proud of it, but it’s definitely not a sustainable business practice.”

With all that in mind, now take a look at the trailer that author/illustrator James Proimos created for his picture book Todd’s TV.

I love the public domain cartoons the TV plays. Thanks to James Proimos for the link!

Finally, or our off-topic video of the day (though I was admittedly stretching it a bit with that photography related vid) I thought we’d go with the Axis of Awesome and the fact that they can combine multiple pop songs with the same four chords. Don’t feel bad if you don’t recognize a fair number of them at the beginning, since I suspect that fair number of these were more popular in Britain than here in America.

The canvas bag song is a PSA isn’t it? In any case, thanks to mom for the link.

Elizabeth Bird is currently New York Public Library's Youth Materials Collections Specialist. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of NYPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Comments

Thanks for the shout-out! And I’m with you on the crowd reactions being awesome in that older Newbery/Caldecott video. My favorite is when someone shouts “I love that book!” when Click, Clack, Moo is announced.

Do you mean a Top 100 Graphic Novels for Kids poll? Could be fun. Small problem being that it might be hard to come up 100 really great books at this point. In even 5 years from now, sure! But at the moment . . . tis a question.

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About A Fuse #8 Production

Features everything from librarian previews of upcoming children's books to news, reviews, and videos. If it has something to do with children's literature, it will rate a mention here.

Betsy Bird is the Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library. She's reviewed for The New York Times and Kirkus, writes articles for Horn Book and SLJ, and wrote the picture book Giant Dance Party. You can contact her at Fusenumber8@gmail.com or follow her on . . .